


Dzoonokwa

by Sealie



Category: Supernatural, The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-20
Updated: 2011-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-22 20:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sealie/pseuds/Sealie





	Dzoonokwa

Fandom: Sentinel with guests from Supernatural.  
Gen  
PG-15  
Warnings: horror elements (there’s a surprise).

Morgan32 and Cindy (Combs) were kind enough to beta this fic prior to me inflicting it on Betagoddess as part of the **Scrapbook**. Lilguppee gave it a thorough going over before I posted it and I’ve made a few additional changes. Any errors are mine.

Set pre-series in the Supernatural time line and first series in The Sentinel time line

British English spelling.

____________________________________________________________

“What the hell is that smell?” Jim wrinkled his nose. He set his half-eaten burger on the dash board.

In the gloom of the car on a midnight stakeout, Blair’s raised eyebrow had to be obvious to the sentinel. “Why do you always ask me? I mean, it’s not like I have a super-nose.”

“It sort of smells like wet wolf, but not?” Jim shook his head.

“Wolf? We’re in the middle of Cascade.”

Jim popped open his door and unfurled his long legs. He stood, the line of his frame screaming of tension.

“Jim?”

Still sniffing, he stalked – definitely stalked – across the street to the gloomy lamppost which was the only source of illumination in the drizzly night. The hair rose on the back of Blair’s neck. Muscles bunched, head down, Jim was a heartbeat from sprinting.

Snap, he was away.

“Shit.” Blair abandoned his hoagie to the floor and scrabbled across the Ford’s bench seat and out on Jim’s side. Ahead of him, Jim made an abrupt left turn into an alley.

“Jim!” Blair hollered, scooting around a garbage can and pushing a filled shopping cart into a mound of cardboard. Someone yelped. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”

He caught a drain pipe and used it to swing rapidly into the alley. Silence blanketed the grimy scene. Narrow and dark, Blair could barely make out the details. A single light above a strip-club back door did little to shed light on the goings on. Squinting, glasses smeary with drizzle, Blair crept forward. Shadows and darkness resolved into Jim standing, his back to Blair, feet shoulder width apart, arms raised.

“Police! Stop or I’ll shoot.”

“Shoot it! Shoot it!” A high pitched voice shrieked.

The report of the weapon reverberated through the alley. Jim stood stance picture-perfect for shooting. Each shot was shockingly loud. A tall stringy figure rocked back with each unforgiving impact. Then its head jerked back with a spray of glistening splat. The meagre light caught an elongated face, warped and out of sorts. The figure dropped, but twisted – impossibly stretched out – onto all fours. A blink and it was gone; bounding over a dumpster, leaping up to a tucked up fire escape, storeys high above their heads.

Blair let his backpack swing down from his shoulder. “What the Hell was that? That wasn’t…”

“Can it, Chief. Give me the first aid kit.”

“What?” Dismissing his question (for the moment), Blair pulled the compact first aid kit that Jim insisted that he drag hither and yon.

“What do you need?”

“Sterile trauma dressing.” Tucking his Sig in the back of his jeans, Jim dropped to his haunches. Blair had missed the sprawled form that Jim had stood over so protectively,

He scuttled over and slapped the dressing into Jim’s outstretched hand. “What was that?”

“Not now, Chief.” Without looking, Jim pointed behind, finger unerringly aiming at a wheeled dumpster piled high with life’s detritus. “There’s a kid, young by the sound of it, hiding under there.”

“Oh.” Blair bent over but couldn’t pierce the darkness. “Hello?” He was too far away. Left, right, he squinted, trying to see any movement. Girding himself, he left the sentinel’s side

“It’s gone, Chief. Can’t hear it. Can’t smell it.”

Hesitantly, Blair knelt on wet, slick tarmac. “It?” He glanced back.

Nostrils flaring, eyes dilated, Jim was focused on his patient. The teenager was a huddle of jeans and plaid shirts, lax in unconsciousness. Jim ran sentinel-sure fingers over the kid’s head and down this neck. The dressing was already firmly wrapped around the kid’s forearm. Finishing his assessment, Jim rolled the lanky teen into the recovery position carefully guiding his right arm.

The kid moaned with the movement, eyes flickering open. “Sam?” he asked.

“Don’t move,” Jim ordered. “You’ve got a broken arm. And probably a concussion.”

“Sammy!” The kid surged against Jim’s grip.

“Chief, the kid. Under the dumpster. See if he’s all right.”

“Oh.” Blair dropped lower as if doing a push up. Two big dark eyes met his.

“SAMMY!” the order was unmistakable.

Sammy shot out from under the dumpster as if from a cannon.

“Whoops.” Blair grabbed a hank of wet shirt, stopping the kid from barrelling into the other boy.

“Dean! Dean!” he shrieked, flailing.

“It’s okay.” Blair yanked the squirming kid back, easily holding him against his chest. “It’s okay. He’s hurt his arm. Don’t jump on him.”

The older kid – Dean – sat up despite all Jim’s protests.

“Give him to me, now.” White, pinched with pain, arm cradled against his chest, his tone was resolute.

“Careful, careful!” Blair chided even as he released the child.

Sammy reached across the distance and burrowed into Dean’s lap. Jim kept a hand on Dean’s back, helping him stay upright as he swayed. Jim flipped open his cell phone in his other hand.

“This is Ellison. I need a paramedic unit and CSI at Esterbrook and West in Downtown.”

^..^

The stretched out feeling that bespoke exhaustion from an all-nighter lay heavy on Blair as he sprawled in the emergency room chair. The hard, scooped chair did little to support his aching back and its cold plastic – easy to clean, Blair supposed – was an added misery. Sammy huddled next to him drowning in the folds of Blair’s winter coat. Feet on the chair, knees tucked in tight, backpack clutched against his chest, he was a curiously familiar figure.

“He’s going to be okay, Sammy,” Blair said, and kicked himself for the triteness.

Sam peered up at him disdainfully through long straggly bangs. “It’s Sam.”

Blair tried again. “Jim thinks that he’s just broken one of the bones in his forearm.”

“Which one? Radius or ulna?” Sam asked.

“He didn’t tell me.” Blair brushed his own arm, remembering how Jim had handled the older kid. “Ulna, I guess.”

Sam brought his arm up in an instinctive blocking motion. “Makes sense, I guess.”

“Karate?” Blair hazarded.

Sam shuffled down in the chair and continued his unrelenting stare at the treatment room doors. His vigilance was rewarded and the electronic doors swung inwards. Jim was revealed with an upright Dean wobbling at his side. Only a deft hand at his elbow seemed to be keeping him on his feet. He weaved like a sapling beside Jim, the stalwart oak tree.

“Dean, Dean. Dean!”

Galvanised, Dean straightened, his uninjured arm coming out to offer a wing of succour for his younger brother. Sam fitted under like a piece in a jigsaw.

Blair picked up Sam’s backpack and ambled over.

“What did they say?”

“I couldn’t get in touch with Dean’s father.” Reaching into his pocket he pulled out an unfamiliar cell phone. “The slashes needed cleaning and stitches – which I convinced the attending needed to be addressed asap given the crap on that thing’s claws. I had to talk to Rae in social services, and got temporary custody so I could get Dean seen to. Luckily, the break’s not that serious, manipulation set the bone right.”

The fabric from the arm of Dean’s checked shirt had been cut off. The kid had a fancy brace but no cast – sensible; so that they could keep an eye on the lacerations.

“I don’t need your help,” Dean said angrily.

Jim shot a frustrated, quelling glare down at him. “I took responsibility for you. I could have easily handed you and your brother over to Child Services.”

Beneath Dean’s arm, Sam made a tiny bleat.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” Dean reiterated.

Jim leaned forward and Blair could almost see a mantling eagle. “I guess you didn’t need my help with that thing either.”

“Are you--” Sam piped up, and squeaked as Dean squeezed him hard.

Dean glowered but kept his mouth shut. Jim ground his teeth.

“So,” Blair said brightly, rocking back on his heels. “Back to the loft.”

“I dunno, Chief, there’s always juvie.”

Sam made a loud, shocked intake of breath. Dean jerked back trying to free himself from Jim’s grip on the back of his shirt, but Sam clinging like a limpet prevented the escape.

“So, Dean, what is it? Our place or juvie? There’s no beds available at CS,” Jim said flatly.

“Jim? What? You can’t.”

“Can it, Chief. It’s Dean’s decision.”

Rock and a hard place had nothing on Jim and his authoritarian bullshit, Blair thought. Dean was white pale, his freckles in stark relief. The kid glared up at Jim, green eyes unwavering. Jim met the stare, unflinchingly.

“Dean?” Sam sniffed and the decision was made.

“Your place, man,” Dean said sullenly.

“Cool.” Blair clapped his hands together. The three jumped. “I think that that’s the best idea. Safer.”

Safer… safer from a weird-assed creepy thing that could leap over buildings in a single bound.

^..^

Jim guided a dead-on-his-feet Dean into the bathroom. Blair had the distinct feeling that shock and pain medication kept the younger man quiescent. Sam watched with trepidation as the bathroom door swung shut.

“Sit.” Blair pointed at the stool by the kitchen counter. “I’ll make some breakfast. Eggs?” He turned to the fridge, mentally assessing the supplies before he even opened the door. Bacon, pancakes and syrup would go down a treat.

Arms filled, he turned back to the counter. Sam sat, hunched, checking the closed bathroom door, balcony windows, skylight above the kitchen and back to the door. He kept up the constant scrutiny as Blair set out a frying pan and added a dash of olive oil.

“Jim’s a trained medic and a police officer; he knows what he’s doing.”

“Have you got any salt?” Sam blurted.

“Yesh.” Blair wrinkled his nose at the condiments as he cracked an egg into a mixing bowl. Rapidly, he cracked a half-dozen eggs, added a dash of milk and seasoned them with a twist of salt and pepper.

“No. A bag?”

“It’s not good for you, man. It’ll stunt your growth.” Blair carefully laid slices of bacon on the skillet.

Sam glanced at the floor-to-ceiling windows leading to the balcony.

“Oh.” Realisation slowly dawned. Anal retentive, buy-in-bulk Jim had a big bag of salt. Blair retrieved it from the back of the cupboard and set it before the kid.

Sam’s roving study, inevitably moved back to the bathroom door. He didn’t touch the salt, even though his fingers twitched.

“Keep an eye on the bacon.” Blair snagged up the bag and crossed to the balcony windows. Laying salt lines was a known method of warding an area. Once, after a pretty spectacular week of nightmares, Blair had woken up in the middle of sleepwalking, pouring salt by the back door. Jim had been pretty phlegmatic in the face of the wavy lines and throughout Blair’s explanation that his mom, Naomi, sometimes liked to lay salt lines when vibes were bad.

Sam watched him pour a thick line across the threshold, his gaze old and worldly wise. The bacon popped and sizzled.

“You know about salt?” Sam gnawed at a finger nail.

“Yep, pretty standard.” Blair headed back over, handing off the salt to the kid, wanting to see what he would do. “You want to do the front door while I do the eggs?”

Plainly thinking so hard that he could barely walk in a straight line, Sam complied.

“Don’t forget the big door.” Blair pointed at the red door with the big number 4 painted on. How were they going to ward the skylight?

Sam knelt, shuffling along, placing a perfectly straight line of salt, he had done it before.

Salt for protection. A flash of memory -- spray of blood, impossibly long face. The jump had been impossible for anything human. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Jim; engrossed by Dean. Sam hadn’t batted an eyelash in the face of a monster. Monster? Holy cow. There had to be a rational explanation.

The bacon hissed and Blair jumped.

Sam finished by the door. “Any other entrances?”

“Room under the stairs. Fire escape and window.”

Sam trotted through.

“Ignore the floor,” Blair called.

Sam grinned back at him over his shoulder. Blair couldn’t help but respond. Cute kid.

Unfortunately, Blair could multitask, so the mundane task of preparing breakfast didn’t stop him thinking. They had to go back to the alley, get Jim to use his sentinel senses to figure out what they had really seen.

“What the Hell was that thing?” Blair asked the world at large.

“The creature in the alley?” Sam poked his head out of Blair’s room.

“Creature?” Blair echoed.

“I dunno. It was hunting us.” Sam gnawed on his lip. He ghosted into the living room, running his fingers along the back of the sofa. “We were just going to get something to eat from the diner and --. Are you a hunter?”

“A hunter?” The question was a mistake. Sam’s expression shuttered. “I’m a scientist, an anthropologist. I study. I don’t have an explanation for what we saw tonight. Yet. I will.”

Sam set the salt bag on the kitchen table without a word. The kid was a true believer and Blair had an open mind – so open that Jim had a tendency to say that Boeing 747s could fly through it. The kid believed that a creature had attacked them – he wasn’t disassembling or telling tales. He simply accepted that it had been a monster. The sane logical explanation was that it was a creep that got his kicks dressing up in Kevlar and a weird mask. Smack in the face of that – oh so, reasonable – explanation was a sentinel-focussed shot in its head followed by a jump that no human could do on the best day of his life.

“I’ve worked with a Shaman in Africa, studied the Tingali, -- there’s so much out there that we don’t understand. Sticking your head in the sand doesn’t help.” Blair always thought out loud.

“Shaman?” Sam questioned even as he pointed at the far wall. The carved African mask grinned at them.

“Spirit mask.” Blair supplied. “Wards off evil spirits. Scares them away.”

Sam drifted over to study it better.

“There’s a book on them there.” Blair pointed at a scatter of books on the shelf with the stones that he had collected from Tanzania.

“You a researcher? Like Uncle Bobby?”

“I’m a researcher. I don’t know if that makes me like your Uncle Bobby.”

“Probably not, if you don’t hunt,” Sam said dismissively as he was drawn to the books.

Blair rolled his eyes. “Knowledge is important, man.”

The bathroom door opened and Jim shepherded out the weary teenager. He steered him over to the dining table.

“Just stay awake long enough to get some food into you. Then you can take some antibiotics.”

Dean slumped. Caught between the call of books and his brother, Sam froze. Dean won. Sam took the chair at his side. Dean wore one of Jim’s grey t-shirts and a pair of sweat pants. The t-shirt and pants enveloped him. The knobbly prominence of his collar bones looked like the frame of a tent beneath the soft, over-washed t-shirt. The rangy length of Dean’s bones emphasised that he was still growing.

Clean and dry, the kid’s hair was a sort of burnished gold, coupled with pouty, sulky lips and long lashes, made a combination that Blair knew that girls would gush over. Teachers would probably let him get away with murder, too. It was good camouflage. But Blair had seen the fire in his eyes when he had demanded Blair release his brother.

“Here.” Jim set down two glasses of chocolate milk.

“Coffee?” Dean said lowly.

Jim simply raised an eyebrow. Sam latched onto the milk and started glugging.

“Not too fast, you’ll make yourself sick,” Jim rebuked.

Sam immediately slowed. Jim moved around Blair getting plates and cutlery, stopping a moment to turn the bacon as Blair poured the pancake mix onto the griddle. Together they had the meal put together in half the time. The portions that Jim set out were minuscule. Blair kept his mouth shut even as he put the extra bacon and pancakes in the oven to keep warm.

Sam dove in like he was starving.

“Slow.” Jim settled opposite, working methodologically through his own small portion.

One-handed, Dean dug a fork in the fluffy eggs. “Is there more?”

“Yeah.” Jim nodded. “When you clean that plate. No hurry. It’s not going anywhere.”

Oh fuck, Blair knew where this was coming from. Jim set the pace, both Sam and Dean matching him. Suddenly, Blair wasn’t hungry anymore. When their plates were clear, Jim poured them a second slug of chocolate milk.

“Seconds?” He stood taking their plates. Sam nodded enthusiastically, Dean, however, was weaving in his chair. “Dean? More eggs?”

Dean blinked. “Yes, sir.”

Blair got up behind Jim, but beat him to the oven. “They’re--”

“Wanting seconds, Chief.”

Knowing that now wasn’t the time for discussion, Blair doled out the seconds. On returning to the table, Jim twisted open the child-proof cap of the bottle of antibiotics and carefully shook the container until two caps dropped, one after another, onto the side of Dean’s plate.

“Antibiotics. You need them.” Jim held the container up so Dean could read the label.

“You don’t want those slashes to get infected, Dean,” Sam said, chewed on his bottom lip.

“I know.” Dean washed them down with the final mouthful of chocolate milk. The yawn which followed was purely unintentional.

“Come on.” Jim was on the other side of the table and reaching for his elbow before Dean finished.

“What?” Dean asked.

“Time to get your head down.”

“What, man?” He blinked owlishly. “I’m not sleeping here. We’ve got to get back to our place.”

“You’ll pass out before you’re on the sidewalk.” Jim easily levered him to his feet and frogmarched a stumbling Dean into Blair’s room under the stairs.

Great, Blair grumbled inwardly. He hadn’t even had a chance to clean up. God knew what was under his bed.

Sam was watching with those big, hazel eyes. Solemnly, he ferried the last spoonful of scrambled eggs into his mouth. “Dean won’t touch anything unless they’re girlie mags in there.”

“No, there isn’t.”

Sam nodded wisely. He set his fork down. “So what happens now?”

“Now?” Blair abandoned his own meal. “I guess it depends. That thing, do you know what it was? Will it come back?” He looked to the salt lines.

“Might. I dunno what it was. It was fast. Long hands with claws.” Sam slashed at the air with his fingers. “It was skinny. Its legs were backwards. Dad’s not hunting a monster. He’s hunting a doppelgänger in Seattle. We were just walking to the diner.”

“Doppelgänger hunting?” Blair double checked. Okay, the day had got officially more surreal.

“Out like a light,” Jim quietly closed the door into Blair’s room. “We’ll have to wake him every hour or two; concussion.”

“I hope you put fresh sheets on the bed.”

“Yeah, your ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ ones.” Jim ruffled Sam’s hair as he passed and then dropped a pile of clothes on Dean’s empty chair. “You want to grab a shower, kiddo?

“Is that an order?”

“I can make it one,” Jim said easily.

Sam slid off his chair, scooping up the clothes. An old, washed and shrunk sweatshirt belonging to Blair and a pair a swimming trucks that could double as shorts.

Jim wiped his hand on his slacks and sat. Blair kept mum until Sam had shut the bathroom door.

“What the fuck happened tonight!” he exclaimed. “I don’t believe it. It was a _thing!_ ”

Jim rubbed his temple. “You’re not kidding, Chief.”

“What… Fuck… Man... What was that thing!”

“I dunno.” Jim sagged back in the kitchen chair and his finger trailed over his eyebrow to rub tiredly at the bridge of his nose. “I know what I saw. And I know what I smelled.”

“And?”

“Dog, wolf, canine – but sweeter. Rotten wood?”

“It stood on two legs.”

“Not after I put six rounds into it.”

“Geez.” Blair pushed a scrap of cold pancake across his plate. “I don’t suppose you smelled LSD?”

Jim chuffed a snort of a laugh. “Both of us? It could be something. Hmmm,” he mused, halfway convinced.

In the space of a heartbeat, he was off down a route where there hadn’t been anything weird in the alley. That it was a joint hallucination. Blair knew his sentinel. Knew despite his phenomenal abilities that the mundane ruled his life.

“Sam said that his dad is hunting a doppelgänger in Seattle,” Blair dropped his bombshell.

“What the Hell’s a doppelgänger?”

“A spirit. A death omen.”

“How do you hunt a ‘death omen’?”

“I haven’t got a clue.”

Jim turned in his seat, attention on two boys behind closed doors. “Sammy said it was stalking them?”

Blair reviewed their conversation, knowing that Jim had been listening as he helped Dean. “Not in so many words. He said that they were going to the diner. I guess it attacked them. That could be a lie; they’re hungry.”

“They’re underfed and borderline malnourished, but they’re not starved. They smell like too much fried food and not enough vegetables. They could have been going to a diner. I don’t think that they were going to buy much, maybe a couple of burgers or scavenge out the back.”

“Gross, man.”

“When you’re hungry,” Jim said pragmatically.

Blair drummed his fingernails against the table – rattatat-- drawing Jim’s concentration to him. “What,” he said with gravitas, “Did. You. See?”

The shrug was half-hearted.

Thy name is denial, Jim Ellison.

“Come on, Big Guy, you remember everything, especially when you’re in hunt mode. You were engaged: full on sentinel senses.” Blair perched on the edge of his seat. They were on a cusp. This was important.

Again, Jim rubbed at his temple. “Tall. It reminded me of a leathery tree. Hair like straw. Fat, red lips.”

“Red lips?”

“You asked, Chief.” His hand moved down his face drawing a long plane. “Elongated face.”

“And,” Blair prompted.

“It wasn’t human.”

There. The words stood before them, bald, brave and naked. It wasn’t human.

“What the hell do we do now?”

Jim’s gaze was unerringly drawn to the two boys that he had brought into their home. “Protect them.”

^..^

Blair sat cross-legged on the floor before his laptop, trying the define the parameters of his meta search. The swirling starfield of his screensaver mocked him.

 _’‘Tall. Leathery tree. Hair like straw. Fat, red lips._ ’ Inputted into Alta Vista had led him to a fishing website. And ‘Fat, red lips’ on its own had raised a sardonic eyebrow from Jim Ellison. Blair had turned the laptop away from the sofa where Sam slept, in a loose curl of adolescent exhaustion.

Logging onto the Cascade U Web of Science anthropological database had not yielded even a scrap of a clue.

“No luck, Chief?” Jim said from where he was baking (a sure sign that he was seriously upset – although his bread was to die for).

“Nah.”

Jim gestured with his mixing spoon at the salt line at the balcony doors. “Look up protective things, then. I don’t believe I said that.”

“Oooh.” Blair liked that idea. “I mean, I know some stuff. We could smudge the apartment with sage.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Hah ha.” Blair tapped at his laptop.

“Look,” Jim began as he pulled off his apron. “I’m going to go down to the department and see what I can find out.”

“About red lipped monsters? At the station?” Blair said incredulously.

“No.” Jim almost but didn’t quite roll his eyes. “Dean and Samuel Winchester. Dollars to donuts there’ll be something on Dean.”

“Jim--” Blair immediately reprimanded. His sentinel was in escape mode; escaping the impossibility that was an attack by a supernatural being.

Jim was halfway out the door. “Keep an eye on the kids, don’t let them leave.”

“I don’t think that that will be a problem,” Blair said to a closed door. Sam slept with his mouth open. The snuffly snore was kind of cute.

^..^

It took him an inordinate amount of time to remember to redo the salt line at the front door after Jim had scuffed it up. But in the meantime, he had found a blessing for Holy Water (he wasn’t too sure if since he was Jewish he could bless water, but if push came to shove he was going to try it) and hoards of information on sacred, silver athames and dhamas which were good weapons against the unclean and undead. The problem was to use a blade you had to get kind of close. That thing had had claws. And where did you buy a sliver dagger in Cascade? Well, there was that occult store on Teavish. Looked like he was going to give Hagen a visit.

On the sofa behind him, Sam smacked his lips and rolled onto his back, waking up.

Blair checked his watch. It was good timing; Dean was due a cognitive check.

“Hey?” he said softly, shutting the lid of his laptop, as Sam blinked at the ceiling.

Sam hummed under his breath, before stretching his skinny limbs like sticks in the over large t-shirt.

“I fell asleep,” he announced, surprised.

“You had a long night.”

“Dean?” Sam cast a confused glance at the fuzzy blanket draped over his legs.

“Still asleep, but it’s time to check on him.”

“Concussion check,” Sam said astutely, throwing off the blanket.

“Yeah,” Blair said slowly, “How old are you, Sam?”

Sam hunched cagily, but answered, “Twelve and a half.”

Ah, the ‘half’ issue, important when you were almost a teenager.

“And Dean?”

“Seventeen, a week ago.”

“You want to check on, Dean? Name, date, where--”

“I know the routine!” Sam said with typical kid waspishness. The thing was most kids didn’t know. Sam disappeared into Blair’s room. Consulting his watch, Blair realised that it was past time for lunch. It had been a fast morning. There was a disgruntled mumble, followed by a squeak of protest, from his room.

The phone rang, startling him. “Fuck, more jumpy than I thought.” Blair scrambled to his feet, running to the phone on the wall by the front door.

“Sandburg,” he announced.

“Chief? Everything okay on the Western Front?”

“Yeah, Sam just woke up. He’s checking on Dean.”

“I’m on the way back to the loft. I picked up gyros and soup. Should be there in about five minutes.”

Blair’s stomach rumbled. “Did you find out anything?”

“Tell you later.”

Dean stumbled out the bedroom, sling askew around his neck. He was pale and given the dark shadows under his eyes, the sleep hadn’t appeared to have helped. But then again he was due another painkiller. Sam stayed close, only a breath between them.

“Jim’s on his way in with food. Should be here in a couple of minutes. You want your pain pill now, or wait until you’ve had something to eat?”

“He needs it now,” Sam piped. “His freckles are out. You only see his freckles when he’s sick.”

“Shut up, dweeb.” Dean fiddled with the sling setting it and his arm more comfortably.

“It’s true!” Sam’s voice rose.

“Sit,” Blair directed.

Dean sat with a thud. “Coffee, man? I need a coffee. Black.”

That was the voice of an addict. Blair wasn’t going to deprive a fellow addict and he had been drinking it since he was thirteen. Caffeine was supposed to help with pain pills – synergism or something.

The drip coffee wasn’t that old. Dean accepted the cup with a heartfelt sigh. Blair shook out two of the painkillers from their container. Voltarol – not the strongest painkiller on the market, but pretty serious. If the doctors had prescribed these, Dean had to be feeling the burn.

Dean tossed the tablets back and drowned them in a scalding mouthful of coffee.

“Where’s--” Dean’s face puckered up, “--Detective Ellison?”

“He’s here,” Jim announced as he opened the door. He held two brown paper bags: one piled with groceries and the other with the distinctive logo of Zorba the Greek’s Restaurant (the owner Philip had a sense of humour). He sniffed. “Coffee?”

“Would you like one?” Blair said innocently.

“It stunts your growth. Ah, see that it has.”

Blair sniffed loudly at the crack, but Sam spoiled his attempt at being aloof by sniggering. Blair mock glared at the small kid, but judging from Dean’s obviously still growing, gangly height, Sam was probably also going to be tall.

Dean slurped at his coffee noisily. Jim shook his head, letting it go, and began to unpack the lunch bag. Sam pounced on a chicken monstrosity with a, “Can I have this one, please. Can I?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Sam took a gianormous bite. “I’m starved.”

Dean snorted under his breath.

“I am,” Sam said out of the corner of his mouth. “I’m growing.”

“That you are, Bitch.”

“None of that language in our home,” Jim barked.

Dean dropped his gaze. “He is, though. He’s grown this winter.”

Sam nodded happily. “Uncle Bobby says that I’m probably gonna be taller than Dean and,” he said with relish, “Dad.”

“You need your vitamins.” Blair pushed a container of salad across the table.

Sam took a proactive bite of his sandwich, filling his mouth to capacity.

“So,” Jim said with a gravitas that stopped everyone mid chew, “do you have an emergency way to contact your dad?”

Sam closed his mouth, rabbit-like over his cheek-fulls. Dean froze, bread stuffed between his teeth.

“Your father, John Winchester. Corporal, Company Echo-2/1, ex-marine.”

“You been checking up on us?” Dean spat lettuce as he stood.

“Sit down, son.”

“I’m not your son!”

“Sit down, Dean,” Jim ordered. “It’s a reasonable question. He should be worried about you. If he’s been trying to contact you at your hotel and he got no answer, he’ll be very worried.”

Dean rocked onto the balls of his feet.

“Do you have any idea why he wouldn’t be answering his cell phone?” Jim took Dean’s phone from his own pocket and set it on the table.

“He’s on a job,” Dean said reluctantly, visibly stopping from snatching up the phone. “He doesn’t always have the time to check up on us.”

“Catching a doppelgänger?” Jim said dryly.

“Sam! You didn’t!” Dean rounded on his brother, indignant.

“Dean, sit,” Jim said solidly.

Dean sat, slumping in the hard wood chair.

“I don’t pretend to understand what your dad thinks he’s doing.” He held up his hand stopping Dean’s protest. “I’m talking. The manager at the hotel said that she hasn’t seen your father since you checked in a week ago. Have you had contact in that week?”

Dean glanced at Sam, before shaking his head.

“A week? Shall we make a missing person’s report?” Jim’s tone was neutral.

It was like watching an interrogation, Blair thought somewhat horrified. Jim had all the cards. He had evidently spent a productive morning at the department and had found a wealth of information on his temporary wards and their missing father.

Dean shook his head.

“If he’s gone a week, man. We should file the report,” Blair interjected.

“How often does your dad leave you and Sammy alone, Dean? And for how long?”

“It’s not like that! He’s got a job to do. He’s got a job that no one understands. But someone’s got to do it.”

“Hunting monsters?”

“You saw it. They’re real.” Dean shook his head in frustration. “No one believes. Even when they see them. They kill people. They killed --. It’s not the fuckin’ X-Files. They’re real and they’re out there. You saw that monster in the alley and you don’t believe it.”

Jim interlaced his fingers and set them on the table top. “Was that a doppelgänger?”

“No!” Dean said incredulously. “Doppelgängers are like banshees, they’re like ghosts that haunt you to death. That was a monster, like a werewolf or a Wendigo.”

Wendigo? Blair wondered. Native American monster, I think?

“So the attack was unrelated to your dad’s,” Jim hunted for the word, “job?”

“Are you a hunter?” Dean countered.

“I can be,” Jim answered.

Dean’s mouth fell open.

“Blair?” Jim said, and since he was using Blair’s given name, Blair sat up straighter. “What have you found out this morning?”

“I haven’t identified the being. But it was corporeal and bled, so I’m guessing that silver, especially if it’s blessed, might harm or kill it. We need a knife, man. I think that I can get one from Hagen.”

Sam took a forgotten bite of his sandwich and swallowed, trying to be discrete. Dean just sat watching.

“You haven’t answered the question, Dean. How long does your father normally leave you both alone?”

Dean shook himself. “Usually, it’s one or two nights max. Last year or so, he can stay away three-four.”

“Okay, I am going to make a missing persons report and make a few phone calls. We need to find your dad. If this thing was hunting you, it might be hunting him and he’s gone missing. At the very least he needs to know what has happened. Does that sound reasonable?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean breathed.

^..^

Dean and Sam were sacked out on the sofa watching a video of Godzilla. Jim nursed a beer on the balcony, even though it was early evening and the sun was just setting casting a wintery light. Fucking senses. Fucking sentinel stuff. If he didn’t believe the evidence of his senses, he might as well hand in his detective’s shield and move to the Funny Farm.

Monsters: Wendigos; Werewolves and Doppelgängers.

Perhaps the Funny Farm would be the best place to relocate to.

It was insane.

Inside the loft, Sam laughed at something on the television and Dean chuckled with him.

A familiar chug-chink heralded Blair’s junker of a car pulling into its parking space. The kid tumbled out of the car, big cardboard box in his arms. Jim cringed, wondering what sort of smelly crap Blair had got from Hagen’s _Alternative Therapies_ store. Blair shut the side door with his butt and didn’t bother or forgot to lock it. He rarely bothered; trusting the residents of Prospect.

Jim upturned the bottle into the bare earth in one of the pots that Blair said he would plant organic herbs in come spring. They probably would taste a little better with a hint of beer. The bottle he tossed in the recycle bin set on the balcony for just that purpose. Living with a wannabe hippy could be a little irritating. He slipped back into the loft, only opening the door a fraction, keeping the heat inside. Slowly, he mentally, flicked his sense of touch dial in response to the warmth.

Blair barrelled into the loft shedding coat, scarf, hat and gloves. The two boys turned on the sofa and peered over the back as he started unpacking the box on the kitchen table. The contents seemed to be mainly books. Dean’s interest returned to the television. Sam clambered over the back of the sofa – Jim winced at the sneakers on his upholstery – and went over.

Blair jabbed a finger at a red hardcover book. “That’s a fascinating book. I don’t know if it’s going to be that helpful, though.”

Jim rolled his eyes. How the kid researched anything with the way that he got sidetracked was a mystery. He crossed the room, dialling up his sense of touch a fraction more, enjoying the indoor warmth. There was an intricately wrought knife on the table, the blade edged with three sides. Jim headed on over to check it out. It was badly balanced, not very good for throwing or for slashing. At best it would be a stabbing blade.

“It’s ceremonial, man. But it is silver.”

Jim flipped it, head over tail. The hilt was weighted. It made a satisfying smack in his hand. The hilt was shaped in what Jim charitably thought was an ugly man with sharp teeth or a monkey. He hefted it, to throw it against the main post holding up the ceiling.

“Don’t!” Blair snatched it from his hand. “You’ll probably damage the point.”

“What’s the use of it?”

“The support is hard. People are softer. Throw it at the sofa.”

Dean turned in his blanket nest and watched warily.

“I’m not throwing it at the sofa, I just got it re-covered.” Jim huffed. “Did you get anything of any use?”

Blair waved at the books with the blade. He tutted loudly and pulled out a satisfactorily long, jaggedly sharp knife.

“Silver?”

“Hagen said it was.”

Jim examined it minutely, which for him was pretty minutely.

“Galvanised,” Dean supplied, standing next to him. The kid moved very quietly and had got close before Jim had registered him. “Like good silverware.”

“Will it work?”

Dean shrugged one shoulder. “Should do. Dad’s got a couple.”

“You know we are assuming that this thing’s coming back,” Blair pointed out. “I mean it might not. It might not even be evil just hungry.”

In the face of both Jim and Dean’s stares, Blair raised his chin.

“If it’s a new species like a sasquatch, we could try reasoning with it.”

“It attacks children,” Jim said.

Sam bristled at that.

“You see that thing you don’t try to reason with it. We shoot first, throw knives and ask questions after,” Jim said implacably.

“I’m just saying--” Blair threw his hands in the air. “Fine.”

“I left a message at the motel, giving my cell phone number so if your Dad turns up he can contact us. I’ve also asked Henri – a detective in Major Crimes – to check the hospitals in and around Seattle for your father.”

Dean looked positively constipated.

“Tomorrow morning, we’ll go to the motel,” Jim continued relentlessly, “and get your things and bring them back here.”

~*~

“Bye!” Sam waved at Dean and Jim pulling away in the Ford into the campus traffic.

Blair marvelled at Jim’s machinations; he had separated the boys, therefore Dean wouldn’t run away. Sam was utterly fascinated by the artefacts which Blair has collected from his trips to Central Africa. A casual promise to show Sam the artefacts in his office had evolved into a day trip with Blair, acting as assistant when they took the opportunity to hunt through the Rainier Library.

“I’ve never been to a University before.” Wide-eyed Sam took in the dreaming spires.

“This is my building.” Blair pointed at the grey, ornate façade. “It houses Anthropology, Social Studies and Psychology.”

He had to keep a hand wrapped around one of the straps of Sam’s backpack as he drew them to his office in the bowels of the building. Sam patted the strip of paper which declared that ‘Blair Sandburg’ was an occupant in the office.

“You’ve got so much _stuff_ ,” Sam marvelled, faced with the mess of an office.

Blair sort of half-grimaced, embarrassed. “It seems to breed. Books, man, food for the soul.”

“I like libraries.” Sam drifted into the office.

“What have you been reading?” Blair plonked down on his seat and force of habit led him to switch on his computer.

“School stuff.” Sam plucked a red, leather backed tome off a stacked shelf.

“What do you like to read?” Blair asked absently, as his email opened. There was nothing flagged up as requiring immediate attention.

“I like studying,” Sam said with a hint of defensiveness.

“Yeah, so do I.” Blair leaned back. He found a quiet moment to simple study the kid. The book hunger bled from every pore. Sam had a book in one hand even as he reached for another. “There is some order,” Blair offered.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Blair pointed at the shelf directly under his collection of handmade leather and sisal bags. “That’s my fiction collection – some of it – you might enjoy the Willard Price books. Amazon Adventure is the first one.”

“Where are the handbags from?” Sam raised an impish eyebrow.

“Kenya, Ghana and Uganda,” Blair answered evenly.

“So many books,” Sam said again, enviously.

“Knock yourself out. What we’re going to do today is _think_. We don’t know what that thing is, but someone, somewhere will have written about it. We know what it looked like. We will find it.”

“I’ve never done research before.”

“Well, then,” Blair said with a plumy British accent, “time to learn a new skill set.”

“So how are you going to start?” Sam moved around the table to Blair’s side.

“I’ve tried cross referencing its physical description on the on-line databases and I didn’t find anything. Dean said that it looked like a Wendigo, so I’m going to find out about those beings.”

“Okay, so how?”

“Well, this --” Blair clicked on an icon on his computer desktop, “--is the Rainier University Anthropological library database which links to the So-Sci network.” Another click and he opened Netscape. “I also find Alta Vista pretty useful.”

~*~

“Pack up your stuff,” Jim ordered, it shouldn’t take too long; it appeared that they had the contents to fill one or two bags each. “It’ll be safer at the loft.”

“Like Hell. How’s my Dad going find us when he comes back? Because he will come back!” Dean bristled from head to tail.

“I’ve given the motel owner twenty dollars, she will pass on the message,” Jim said evenly. There was a scent of gun oil and old metal. The metallic greasy scent tingled against his lips. There was an old gun, probably a shotgun secreted somewhere.

“Yeah, right.” Dean stood in the centre of their grimy motel-apartment.

“When your Dad does make contact, I’ll give her fifty. I’m good for it.”

“You made of money, man?”

“No,” Jim drawled, “that’s why I’m not paying for your motel room until the end of the week.”

~*~

“So,” Blair summarised, “A Wendigo is part of the traditional belief system of tribes the Ojibwa/Saulteaux, the Cree, and the Innu/Naskapi/Montagnais -- Algonquian-speaking. It’s cannibalistic, malevolent and supernatural. Do you think we’re dealing with a Native American Manitou?”

“You’re asking me?” Sam actually pointed at his chest.

“Yes,” Blair answered without hesitation. “You know more about this than me.”

“Dad kinda kept me out in the dark until I was ten. I only did my first ghost hunt a year ago.”

“You’re a bright kid. You saw it. What did you think when you saw it?”

“I thought it looked like it was made out of sticks, wood.” Sam drew his hand down his face. “Its face was fixed with fat, red lips until it changed and then Detective Ellison’s rounds hurt it.”

“Really?” Blair cocked his head to the side. “Sort of maybe like a mask?”

They both turned and looked at the collection of African masks on the wall opposite the handbags.

“Do you,” Sam hazarded, “have Indian masks?”

“Native American,” Blair corrected without rancour. “No, it’s not my field. But, there’s a whole museum devoted to the North West tribes two minutes walk from this office.”

“Come on, then.” Sam launched off the arm of Blair’s computer chair. “Let’s go.”

“Ha!” Blair echoed the glee of the chase. “Let’s go.”

~*~

“Put the shotgun on the bed, I’ll unload the shells from the gun,” Jim said absently as he cleaned out the bathroom.

Dean swore under his breath. In the privacy of the bathroom, Jim could grin outright. He wished that he’d been a sentinel when he had been training the new recruits in boot camp.

 

~*~

“Wow.”

Sam’s enthusiasm was endearing. The university museum was designed around their collection of towering totem poles. The ceiling was an arched glass homage to local art. Sam stood within a shaft of wintry sunlight as he turned in a slow circle, entranced.

Blair never got tired of museums and exhibitions, but seeing afresh the magic of finding new knowledge through someone as young as Sam, was special.

Sam drifted down the wide open hallway, mouth opened, towards the next chamber, which was well lit with floor to ceiling windows. The columns of totem poles were set between displays of artefacts. Stopping before, what Blair knew was a feasting table, Sam said,

“Is that a boat?”

“Actually, no. The carvings would make it difficult to use as a boat. The pictures of the salmon are ubiquitous in Native American art in this region, but here we think that they indicate the food which was placed for display in this table… vessel… which was used during important events.”

“Huh, it looks like a boat.” Sam screwed up his nose. “So where do we find the monsters?”

Blair grinned; you had to love his enthusiasm. “It’s not my field so we ask someone who might know.”

“Who?” Sam peered around. Outside of the tourist season they were alone in the great hall.

“I know the curator.”

“What’s a curator?” Sam trotted along at his heels.

“The person who looks after the museum.”

“Huh.” Sam pondered. “Like a librarian for stuff instead of books?”

“Pretty much.”

Passing through ‘staff only’ double doors took them to a new world. The stacks reached from floor to ceiling, shelf upon shelf of carefully catalogued artefacts. Sam walked chin raised, mouth open, a picture of awe and study. A set of drawers caught his eye and curiously he pulled one open to reveal a selection of fish hooks. Leaning forward his nose almost touched the protective glass casing.

“These are the storage units. Some of the artefacts rotate between here and the displays. Most of these are fairly robust; they just need a stable, constant environment.” Blair pointed to the air con unit hanging from the ceiling. “Others are held secure, under more protective conditions.”

“Like what?”

“Well--” Blair directed his charge down the aisle, “--it depends on the artefact. There’s a 17th Century warship in a museum in Sweden which is encased in wax.”

“Like a candle?” Sam’s nose scrunched up.

“Think of it more like a coating. It’s important to prevent the degradation of the collections. Cutting down light is important.”

“Is that why it’s so gloomy?”

“Partly.”

“Who does all this stuff belong to?” Sam turned in a circle, trying to take in the scope of the elongated warehouse.

Blair stopped dead. “The short answer is everyone. The complicated answer is everyone. The Devil is in the details. We have collections which have long and detailed provenances. There are items which are on loan from Native American communities. There are other items, even with long and detailed provenances, over which there’s dispute regarding ownership and even what defines ownership.”

Sam was peering at him under a fall of long floppy hair. “There’s a skull over there! That belongs to the person who was the… skull… when they were alive. I think?”

“Some people would dispute that, depending on the age of the skull. That’s one of the main bones--” Blair winced at his own inadvertent pun, “—of contention.”

“Dad burns skeletons to kill ghosts.”

“Kill ghosts?” Blair double checked. “‘Cos you know ghosts are dead.”

“Okay,” Sam huffed. “Move on.”

Blair could feel his eyebrows rise. “For real? You’ve seen it?”

Sam shrugged lopsidedly. “Yeah, they go poof in a swirl of white light or they’re sucked down into darkness – depends.”

“On what?” Blair couldn’t help but ask. Sam was genuinely telling him that ghosts existed, he had seen them and he had seen them _move on_. The ramifications were world altering, or more accurately, altering Blair’s world view.

“I guess if they’re good or bad.”

“Ah, Blair?” The interruption was welcome. “What are you doing here?”

Dr. Elliot was a small woman, doll-like in her frame and demeanour. She glanced brusquely at the unannounced stranger in her domain, even though Sam was a child. Catalogue, categorise and assess.

“Dr. Elliot, I’m glad you found us. This is my friend Sam. He’s interested in Native American myth and legends. He’s trying to pull together a project and he wants it to be special. I immediately thought to you.”

That garnered a fraction of a welcoming smile.

“It’s amazing,” Sam enthused. “I’ve never been anywhere like it. Dad’s not really into museums. When I’ve been with school trips we get to see the displays. But here is all the stuff, I mean, _all_ the things. It must be really hard work.”

Blair marvelled; the little guy was a con artist.

“Mrs. Dee, my teacher, told us to make a project about myths which are about things which are interesting to us – kids, I mean. And, well, Bobby’s doing Saint Nicholas and Ibraham’s doing flight and Icarus – they’re all boring, well not boring but…?” He looked mutely at Blair.

“Well known?” Blair supplied.

“Yes, well known. Don’t you think it’s better to learn something new?” Sam said earnestly at Dr. Elliot.

“Yes,” she said decisively. “What are you interested in?”

“Masks,” Sam responded promptly.

The smile that curled her lips, transformed her from impassive to approachable. “You’ve come to the right place.”

“Blair said you were the person to see.”

“Come on. Come on,” Dr. Elliot chivvied, her high heels click-clicked against the tiled floor. She was already halfway down the aisle. “Tell me specifically what you’re interested in.”

Sam darted forward to keep up. Blair brought up the rear, backpack bouncing against his shoulder blades.

“Manitou. Shape-changers who use masks to shift.”

“Interesting. Why that specifically?”

Sam chanced a glance over his shoulder at Blair, who mouthed, “Go on.”

“Blair has lots of masks. And I was wondering why make masks? Are you pretending to be something you aren’t? Or honouring a… spirit by looking like them. Or can a mask make you something special?”

Wow, Blair thought, Sam was bright.

“Are there legends about people who wear masks to change into something else?” Sam continued.

“Oh, yes, indeed.”

^..^

Jim scowled at Blair’s locked office door. Where the Hell were they? Blair had promised to keep the kid in his office.

“Where’s my brother, Detective Ellison?” Dean growled, a flush of colour rising on his pale cheeks.

Jim held up a finger, even as he speed-dialled Blair. “Chief, where are you?”

“Geez, man. We’re in Dr. Elliot’s office.”

“I’ll come to you.” Jim snapped the phone shut. “They’re safe; they with Dr. Elliot.”

“Who’s he?”

“She is the curator of the Rainier Museum of Anthropology and Native Studies.”

“Cute?”

Jim pictured the diminutive woman, her obvious Native American heritage; her silver streaked black hair and hawkish nose, plus her – I can’t tolerate idiots – manner. The answer to Dean’s question was ‘yes,’ but she was also a good twenty years older than Dean.

“She’s married.”

“And?” Dean drawled.

“Married,” Jim said quellingly. He executed a parade turn, forcing the teen to scuttle backwards. “Let’s go get your brother and my partner.”

Their wayward younger brothers were completely oblivious to their entrance, pre-occupied, both caught up in reading. Dr. Elliot was obscured by the computer monitor, which was an effective barrier between the person at the computer and the door. No one could creep up on Dr. Elliot. There was a hiss as she raised her computer chair higher. She looked over the top of the monitor, dark eyes narrowing as she saw Jim and Dean. Sam was intent on a thin, black-backed moleskin book in his hands. Blair was leaning towards Dr. Elliot to better view the monitor as he manipulated the mouse on the desk.

“Gentlemen?” she asked.

“Oh?” Sam lifted his head. “Dean! Look!” He shuffled off the chair, scuttled around the enormous oak table and thrust the old notebook into Dean’s hand.

“Careful with the book!” both Dr. Elliot and Blair chastised; two voices in unison.

Small, neat black ink marched across the pale lines. Sentinel eyes easily read the text. At the bottom of the page was an ink sketched face -- long with baleful eyes and the full lipped mouth was open in a scream. The hair was a thatch of scribbly lines.

“Dzoonokwa?” Jim probably mispronounced. It was the thing in the alley.

As he also read, Dean intoned mockingly, “Ho, Ho, Ho.”

Dr. Elliot let out a discordant barking, “HO!”

The hair rose on the back of Jim’s neck at the call.

“It’s ‘ _Dzoonokwa_ ,’” Sam said with authority. “Kwakwaka'wakw, figure of mythology of the North West Pacific tribes. A giant of the forests and wild woods. She kidnaps and eats lost children.”

“Lost children?” Jim said, looking at Sam in his mismatched, well-worn clothes.

“Forests, man?” Dean rolled his eyes.

“Sam’s chosen to do his project on Native American masks used in ceremonies and legend,” Blair said brightly.

“Have you got enough information--” Jim wrinkled his nose at the dusty office, “--for your report?”

Dr. Elliot shuffled off her chair and dropped to the floor. She bustled around her desk, scooping up a worn, foolscap-folio sized book, plastic bound and probably older than Sam. “Nice to see you again, Detective Ellison.”

“Dr. Elliot.” Jim nodded respectfully.

“Samuel. I’m afraid that I can’t let you take the notebook, it’s an heirloom. This book--” she hefted the yellowing leaves and passed them over accepting the notebook in return, “--will provide you a great overview of many of the Native American myths along the Pacific coast. It’s a photocopy of lots of different chapters from lots of different books. When you’re finished with this, you need to give it back to Blair, so he can return it to me.”

Sam nodded seriously, hair bobbing in his eyes. “Is there anything about the Dzoonokwa in here?”

Dr. Elliot pursed her lips, thinking for a moment. “Yes,” she said with certainty. “Are you going to write about the Dzoonokwa?”

Sam nodded more vehemently.

“Hmmm, there is an actual mask in the School of Anthropology. There are displays in the foyer. One of them is examples of Tla-o-qui-aht and the Ahousaht First Nations artefacts and art from Canada.”

“Duh!” Blair slapped his forehead.

Dr. Elliot’s brow furrowed. “It’s not as if you knew that young Sam was going to study the Dzoonokwa?”

“True!” Blair smiled, toothily. “We’ll definitely have a look at that.”

Curious thoughts scrolled across Dr. Elliot’s face, weighing Blair’s over ebullience to a simple statement.

“I think that it’s time for lunch.” Jim said.

Dean’s stomach growled loudly. Shuffling embarrassed, he looked at the floor.

“Man, yeah. I’m starving!” Sam agreed.

“First, though.” Jim nodded at Dr. Elliot.

”Oh, yes. Thank you. Dr. Elliot you’ve been great.” Sam smiled directly at her; they were both the same height.

“I’ve enjoyed our morning too.”

“Would you like to come to lunch?” Blair asked.

“Tempting, but as much fun as this has been, I have a phone conference at two o’clock which I do need to do a little prep for.”

Dean was already shuffling towards the door. His pinched white face spoke of his need for food and pain pills. Sam hopped from foot to foot, effervescent. Blair moved quickly to his side.

“Thanks, Dr. E., you’ve been a star.”

Dr. Elliot waved absently, already settling on the computer chair. “Leave the door ajar, thanks.”

Jim shepherded the two kids to the door. Dean was standing tall in the corridor, glaring balefully at nothing.

“What do you want to eat?” Jim asked.

“Burgers,” Dean responded instantly.

“Something healthy, man,” Blair protested. “The noodle bar.”

~*~

In a line: Jim, the tallest; then rangy, skin and bones Dean; short and stocky Blair and, last but not least, Sam, stood before the glass cabinet in the Anthropology foyer. They had walked past a Dzoonokwa mask at least eight times throughout the day.

“Ugly bitch,” Dean summarised.

“Language,” Jim reprimanded.

Blair leaned forward, pushing his glasses up his nose as he peered at the printed card propped up against the mask.

“The Dzoonokwa is an archetypical monster-giant of North West coast. Eater of human flesh and stealer of children, she can also bestow power and wealth,” Blair read.

“Why the H—heck is she after us?” Dean demanded.

“Kidnaps and eats lost children,” Blair said, paraphrasing the notebook back in Dr. Elliot’s office.

“I’m not a kid, man. Sammy is,” Dean began easily, but his tone suddenly rose upwards and he turned to Jim. “Do you think it’s just after Sammy?”

“Over my dead body,” Jim said.

Sam shuffled a little closer to Blair. “Can we take the mask?”

Still leaning over, Blair craned his head round. “Yeah, my… you’re an ‘A’ student, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Dean answered for Sam. “So we’re going to take the mask? Why?”

“It’s related to shamanism, by putting on the mask the wearer becomes that spirit, animal or creature. We’re maybe trying to find someone who’s wearing a mask or a Dzoonokwa. But the mask is power, holding the mask will imbue us with a power to possibly control --”

“We could burn it,” Dean said clinically.

“We can’t burn it, man!” Blair said horrified, “it’s an important artefact.”

“Whatever. If this thing is linked to the Dzoonokwa, burning it will hurt the Dzoonokwa.”

“I don’t think that the dzoony will be that bothered about us taking the mask out the back of the building and setting it on fire,” Jim said. “There must be hundreds of these things lying around.”

“So buried in the mundane.” Blair shook his head. “It’s about the power of contamination. You’re right, though, it’s only going to work if the Dzoonokwa sees or knows that we have the mask.”

“So we’re taking it? The box isn’t alarmed. It’ll take me less than a minute to pick the lock.” Dean grinned insouciantly. “Sorry, officer.”

There had been, surprisingly in Jim’s judgment, no record on Dean. A kid that lived between the slats of society like Dean usually had had some run ins with the law. Plus, apparently, he had lock-picking skills. Dean was wriggling the fingers on his undamaged hand limbering them up.

“I’ll go get the key from the porters’ office.” Blair stalked off.

Sighing theatrically, Dean stuffed his hand in his jean’s pocket.

Not giving Dean the satisfaction of rising to his teasing, Jim scoped out the foyer. “Have you come across these dzoony things before? Do you know why it came after you?”

Dean shrugged one shoulder. “Never heard of them. I guess it’s like a Wendigo. We didn’t even have a hunt here. The job’s in Seattle, where Dad is. The week before, Dad was down south in Kent. The motel was convenient. Dad left us to do the jobs. We were in school.”

Blair returned with the key. When he opened the cabinet, he passed the mask over to Jim and then started rearranging the display. It might be a day or two before anyone noticed it was missing. The mask in Jim’s hands was both flimsy and substantial. Curious, he rotated the long wooden face, trying to plumb its heft. It felt like a wing. The hollow eyes gazed at nothing and the red ringed mouth was painted in an open scream.

“Ho,” Jim breathed. It was just a mask. There was nothing remotely supernatural about a piece of plywood. The case defied belief.

“I hope we don’t have to burn it,” Blair grumbled. “It won’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that we took it.”

Jim checked his watch. “Okay, it’s 15:30. I’ll drop you guys at Prospect and go down to Major Crimes, find out if anything’s turned up about your dad and see if any other kids have gone missing around that motel.”

Blair made grabby hands for the mask. Jim was happy to pass it over. A strand of straw from the hank of hair stuck to his jersey. He flicked it off on to the floor.

Sam crouched down and picked it up, rubbing it between his fingers curiously.

“Here.” Jim separated his lock box key from his key ring. “We stored the Winchesters’ guns and other things in the safety box under my bed.”

Dean made an abortive grab for the key. “I bet I know more about guns than Mr. Hippy-let’s-talk-to-the-monster.”

“‘Cos violence solves everything,” Blair retorted.

Dean pointed out, “A good salt and burn solves most of our problems.”

“Blair has the key,” Jim ended the argument. “Truck, now.”

~*~

It took Dean three seconds after Blair had locked the apartment door behind them to demand the key.

“We’re trained. It will be _perfectly_ safe to leave them laying around and it will be a Hell of--”

“Language,” Blair couldn’t believe that he had said that.

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Do you really think if that thing comes through the skylight we’ll have time to get up to Detective Ellison’s room and open his safe box? Look, I bet Sam knows more about guns than you do.”

Sam only shrugged in agreement. “It moved real fast.”

“Detective Ellison unloaded the shotguns. We have to open the box _and_ we’ve got to load the salt rounds.”

“Salt rounds?”

“Cartridges filled with rock salt. Works against ghosts,” Sam said helpfully.

Blair blew out a hard breath and Dean smiled.

“Okay, Sam, you come and help me. Dean, you sit on that sofa before you fall over.” It was a petty jab, but Dean simply smirked and dropped onto the sofa – the war had been won.

Sam traipsed up after Blair into Jim’s sanctum. Bowed with a heavy dose of reluctance, Blair dragged out the safe box. The lock took a couple of jiggles before it opened. Sam dropped onto Jim’s bed and scrunched up cross-legged.

“Holy--” The box was filled to capacity.

“Why does Detective Ellison have the box? There’s no one here who’s irresponsible?” Sam asked curiously.

Blair rocked back on his heels. “I guess it’s habit.” He poked a cardboard box filled with orange finger-length cylinders.

“They’re the shells. We should put one shotgun by your bedroom door. Another one by the kitchen table. There should be a silver knife down the side of the sofa – on the left side.” Sam leaned over Jim’s balcony. “The coffee table in the living area would be good.”

Blair sank a little further onto the floor. “How long have you been doing this?”

Sam turned away from his assessment and stared at him levelly, he didn’t answer.

“Okay,” Blair changed the subject. “The Dzoonokwa is a spirit of the forests, why would it be in Cascade, Washington, hunting you two? Have you had any run ins with a Native American? A case… a job with Native Americans?”

Sam shrugged, a sad rise and fall of his shoulders that just hurt to see. “I don’t know everything that Dad does. Dean might know.”

“Okay, we’ll ask Dean.”

“Ask me what?” Dean yelled. “Bring the shotguns down. We need to set them by the bedroom door and the kitchen table. Leave a silver knife under Detective Ellison’s pillow.”

Sam pushed back Jim’s mound of pillows. “There’s one already here. The galvanised silver one.”

Dean snorted. “Should have guessed.”

Giving into the inevitability of the situation, Blair handed a shotgun over to Sam who checked the double barrelled chamber and found it empty. Dipping into the box, Sam liberated the box of shells, slotting one into in each barrel. Clambering off the bed, he lifted out a leather belt holding four wicked-looking knives before scampering back down the stairs to the living room. Gingerly, Blair picked up the second shotgun with his finger tips before making his own way down.

“Yeah, that’s filling me with confidence,” Dean said dryly.

“I don’t like guns.”

“They’re tools – liking doesn’t come into it.”

Blair set the shotgun on the kitchen table, unloaded. Sam had already propped the other one by Blair’s bedroom door.

“What did you want to ask?” Dean sagged bonelessly into the sofa, back half on the seat cushion, long legs under the coffee table. A knife lay on his lap. The blue sling hung around his neck like a cowboy’s neckerchief. His broken arm sort of looked abandoned lying on the cushion beside him. His thin cotton jacket was still wrapped around his shoulders like a cape.

Blair knelt by the wood stove, setting a lit match to the pyramid of kindling and paper, coaxing it to life. “Any ideas why a Dzoonokwa is after you?”

“Dad took his journal with him,” Dean said, somewhat nonsensically to Blair. “I haven’t been on any jobs with anything like this. There was a Wendigo but that was a couple of years back. But Dad might have riled up a Manitou or something. These Dzoony things are local, aren’t they?”

“Yes, Kwaguilth mythology.”

“Whatever. Dad could have offended a local spirit on one of the jobs he’s done in the last month. That might be…” Dean trailed off not voicing that their Dad was missing.

Sam’s bottom lip wobbled.

“We could have tweaked its interest, you know,” Dean added, thinking out loud, “It’s a hunter thing. After a while you learn to see ghosts and stuff. Could have reacted to something. Dunno what, though; been in school for the last month.”

“Manitou are part of the _Omàmiwinini_ tradition, they’re not really part of the North West,” Sam volunteered blindly. His fingers rested on Dr. Elliot’s file on the coffee table.

“Geek.” Dean rolled his eyes.

“Research!” Sam retorted pointing at the mask beside Dr. Elliot’s file. “We didn’t pick this thing up last month or a year ago. It’s recent.”

Dean struggled upright, cradling his arm. “Okay, then, it has to be Dad. He was down in Kent. I don’t know what the job was. Something real nasty or I would have been there.”

“Kent? Okay, research time.” Blair pulled his laptop from his backpack.

“Great.” Dean swung his feet onto the sofa and thumped his head on the end pillow. He was snoring a second later.

“Broken bone,” Sam offered in explanation.

^..^

Blair, as he read, realised that Sam was right and wrong about his inference that the Manitou were restricted to the other side of the country. As a concept the Manitou were everywhere -- regardless of the name that a spirit might be referred to, even if it wasn’t exactly clear what constituted a spirit or a soul. The Dzoonokwa, however, was of the Pacific North West, so the hypothesis that her interest in the kids was a recent event still stood.

The City of Kent seemed an unlikely place for a spirit to decide to gain revenge on a man by taking his children. But, Blair didn’t have a clue what John Winchester, ex-Marine, might have been doing in Kent. Disturbing sacred ground seemed most likely, given Sam’s stories of the Winchesters’ main mode of operation: digging up bones and burning them to get rid of ghosts.

Sam was staring at him across the kitchen table.

“I think that we need to do an appeasement ceremony. Ask the spirits for forgiveness. We have to talk to someone who knows this stuff,” Blair said.

“Uncle Bobby would know. But Uncle Bobby’s not answering his phone.”

“Huh.” Blair had missed that furtive phone call. “Anyone else?”

Sam looked at him mutely.

Cult of secrecy, Blair mused inwardly. Sam would answer the question. Blair started silently counting.

“Pastor Jim does things like Catholic stuff, exorcisms. Nothing like this.”

Blair grabbed a post-it. “Do you know his number?”

“Blue Earth, Minnesota, 555--,” Sam began.

~*~

That had been one seriously interesting conversation, but unfortunately not specifically helpful. Pastor Jim had agreed that the silver knives and silver rounds (none were in the lock box) would probably be effective against the forest spirit. He had agreed to consult some fellow hunters and call Blair back as soon as humanly possible. If Blue Earth, Minnesota, had not been over a thousand miles away, Blair knew that James Murphy would have already been setting out immediately to help.

“He’ll call back,” Blair summarised.

“Is Pastor Jim coming?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if soon as he’s talked to some of his colleagues he’ll be investigating flights out here. One thing he did say was that if the Dzoonokwa had attacked your Dad it would have probably stopped there. It doesn’t do the family line revenge thing.”

“Oh.” Forlornly, Sam turned to the balcony windows, stopping before them to look at his distorted reflection on the rain drizzled panes. “Where is he, then?”

“What?” Dean started, awake. “Oh, man.” He curled up over his broken arm, cradling one in the other.

“Dean, you all right?” Sam turned.

“Yes, I’m fine!” Dean snapped, proving that he was anything but.

Blair looked at the kitchen clock. “It’s time for a Voltarol.”

“Where’s Detective Ellison?” Dean growled.

It was actually getting late; the winter sun had set and the drizzly, sleet based rain would force anyone home. Blair scooped up the bottle of Voltarol from the kitchen table and lobbed it over to Sam.

“Give them here,” Dean demanded.

Blair left them to fight over who actually opened the child-proof bottle. He gazed at the house phone on the wall by the front door, trying to judge whether or not it was time to call Jim at Major Crimes. Deciding to leave it, for the moment, he consulted the innards of the fridge. Hanging off the door, he glumly concluded that they were desperately in need of a grocery shop.

Sam pushed by him, taking a bottle of water from the fridge door. “Thanks.” He went back to Dean’s side.

“Pizza? How does pizza sound?” Blair offered faced with a box of eggs, a stick of celery and two six packs of beer and, weirdly, lots of milk.

“Ham and pineapple,” Sam piped up.

“Freak,” Dean said. “Pepperoni.”

He now had a good excuse to call Jim. He answered his cell almost immediately.

“We’re ordering pizza. What do you want?”

“Grand Salmi Primo. I’ll be home in thirty minutes.”

“Got anything?”

“No news is good news.” Jim clicked the phone off.

Blair had four phone numbers memorised: Jim’s cell and office; his own and Paglaicci’s Pizza. He added a small Hawaiian and medium spicy pepperoni to their standard order of verde primo and Jim’s heart attack pizza.

~*~

Jim pulled into his parking spot and let the engine idle. John Winchester was a ghost; he hadn’t turned up on any of Jim’s searches. Not a single John Doe in Seattle, Cascade, Tacoma, Kent or Auburn matched Winchester’s physical description. The man’s jacket was a mismatch of trespassing; small-time credit card fraud and three run ins with Child Services.

A motorbike pulled up beside Jim’s truck. An insulated box on the back proclaimed Paglaicci’s Pizza; their food had arrived.

“Hey.” Jim switched off the engine and clambered out.

“Oh, Detective Ellison, hi. You got visitors?” The kid pushed up his visor and grinned.

“Yeah. How much do I owe you?” he asked, reaching into his back pocket. The rain was taking on a nasty level of sleetiness. He wanted to get inside. The amount made him blink, but he guessed that they’d probably have enough pizza left over for breakfast.

“Thanks.” The kid pocketed the bill and his tip, and was screeching away.

Jim hurried towards his loft. He liked his pizzas warm. Pausing at the entrance, he listened, upstairs; he could hear Blair puttering, the television on and Dean talking lowly to Sam. The shop beneath the loft was quiet, only the hum of electrics powering the burglar alarm. Sleet now ricocheted off the sidewalk. It was turning into a nasty, wintery night. Jim squinted, scanning through the veil of rain. A man hunched against the driving sleet, walked down the hill. Jim couldn’t smell anything even remotely wolf-like. And the whole state of Washington smelled like wet trees. Enticingly, the scent of the pizzas wafted upwards. He stepped into the hall and closed the door.

“Man, it’s about time!” Blair called down the stairs. “Hurry up, we’re starving.”

Jim jogged up the stairs. The loft was a warm haven. Blair seized the boxes and set them on the kitchen table. They were ready and waiting, table set -- down to the bottle of beers and empty glasses. Sam was perched on his knees on a chair, eagerly reaching for the boxes, as Dean slouched next to him.

As he shrugged out of his wet jacket, Jim spotted the gun propped against the table leg. “What?”

“It’s safer,” Dean said, eyes flat. “If that thing gets in we won’t have time to open your box.” He snagged a triangle of pizza.

“That’s mine!” Sam protested.

“I’ve been around guns forever, Detective Ellison, so has Sam. If anyone else comes in, we’ll collect them up and lock them away. Blair said there’s never any little kids in here any rate.”

Jim let it go, partly because he suspected that Dean was right about his and Sam’s experience with weapons and, secondly, he had seen the speed of that thing in the alley.

“Have you heard anything from Dad?” Sam asked around a mouthful of pizza.

“He hasn’t turned up in any hospitals or been picked up by the police,” Jim reported.

“No news is good news,” Blair parroted from their earlier conversation.

Dean shook his head, angry, but only seethed. He didn’t speak. As soon as he felt a little better, Jim knew that Dean was going to go looking for their Dad. Sam hiked his chair a little closer to Dean’s.

“I think,” Blair continued as he leaned over and poured milk into Sam and Dean’s glasses, “that we should go to Kent tomorrow and see what we can find.”

“Kent? Why Kent?” Jim asked, he would have thought that they would have been angling for a trip to Seattle.

“We figure,” Blair encompassed both Sam and Dean in his statement, “that Mr. Winchester caught the interest of the Dzoonokwa when he was on his last job, which was in Kent.”

“And do what in Kent?” Jim munched on a slice of pepperoni.

“Pastor Jim’s going to call us back about that,” Sam added.

“Pastor Jim?”

“Colleague of Dad’s,” Dean added his two cents worth. “Blair figures we might be able to make amends or something to stop it coming after us.”

Jim leaned back in his chair. “You know where your Dad was working?”

“Somewhere north of Lake Meridian.”

“We go there. You talk to the local police, find out if there’s been any _weird_ things going on and we check it out,” Blair summarised.

“So there’s a plan,” Jim said sardonically.

“It’s reasonable, based on the research we’ve done,” Sam said proudly. “We know it’s a local spirit. Before this we were in Nebraska.”

“We find this spirit and we might find where Dad is,” Dean said.

“But Dad’s in Seattle,” Sam said. “It hasn’t done anything to Dad. It goes after kids. Dad’s on a job and he’s got caught up. He’ll be back. We can’t get in touch with Uncle Bobby, ‘cos Uncle Bobby’s gone to help him.”

Dean nodded vehemently in agreement, mouth stuffed with pizza.

“Sounds reasonable,” Jim said. And without knowing Winchester he had to take the kids’ assessment even if it was unpalatable. Jim didn’t understand the man’s job and, he really didn’t get leaving a seventeen year old and a twelve year old to fend for themselves for a week. The big hole in Sam and Dean’s assessment was that they couldn’t contact their Dad.

“So Kent tomorrow, Mr—Detective Ellison?” Sam double checked.

“Kent tomorrow, Sam. We’ll set out early, 08:30,” Jim assured.

“K.” Sam gnawed on an edge of pizza crust, happy with a concrete plan.

Dean stared at Jim, he was trying for cocky, but he only looked young and tired, the splay of freckles dark against his pale skin. Jim took a swig from his bottle of beer. Dean suddenly smirked and reached for his glass of milk.

“Don’t forget to drink your milk, Sammy.”

~*~

“Okay.” Blair held up three VHS tapes. “Star Trek: Generations; Speed or Pulp Fiction?”

Jim rolled his eyes heavenward. He didn’t argue though. Movie night meant that there was real butter and salt on the popcorn that he was fighting with Sam over. Jim’s hands were bigger; he was getting the biggest handfuls.

“Pulp Fiction’s supposed to be good,” Sam pointed out.

“Speed,” Dean said with the voice of authority.

Jim nodded, Sam was too young for Pulp Fiction and Star Trek was boring.

“I also have a National Geographic docu--” Blair ducked as he was pelted with popcorn. “Speed, it is.”

~*~

The film, in Blair’s estimation, could have been better edited. The last twenty minutes were pretty pointless. Dean had fallen asleep about halfway through, inevitably slipping sideways against the cushions. His deep breathing had been a relaxing counterpoint to the action film. Sam was wide, wide awake, determined not to fall asleep, even if it meant that he had to sit bolt upright.

“Bed,” Jim announced as the credits rolled.

“Dean? Dean?” Sam shoved his brother. “Move, man. Bed.”

“What? Not again.” Blearily, he scrubbed at his face. “Yeah, bed. Come on, Geekboy.”

They sort of dragged each other up.

“Do you need a pill?” Sam asked.

“Nah.” He shifted his arm in the sling.

“It’s time for your dose. They’re anti-inflammatory, they’ll help,” Jim said as he moved to get the tablets.

“We need to check the salt lines,” Dean said around a yawn.

“I’ll do that,” Blair said. The bag of salt was in its new position by the front door next to their boots. The only one that might need touching would be the line by the front door. Blair contemplated actually doing a semi-circle so when the door opened it didn’t grind the salt into the floor. Jim was going to insist on refinishing the floors across the whole loft. He crouched down, there really wasn’t any point following the line of the door.

“Blair!” Jim said urgently, chin up as poised as a hunting dog.

Above him the double barrelled shotgun blast blew the lock clean out the door. Wood splinters flew. A booted kick smashed the door off its frame. Blair just managed to roll out of the way as it crashed to the floor.

“Police, freeze!” Jim had the shotgun from the kitchen table.

“Dad!”

Fuck. Lying on the floor, the man looked enormous to Blair. The intruder was tall, dark haired with a scruffy beard. Solid was the only description which came to mind.

“Don’t shoot!” Sam shrieked.

“Don’t!” Blair echoed, struggling to sit up.

“Above you!” Mr. Winchester said inexplicitly, he pivoted, aiming up to the ceiling just as the skylight exploded inwards.

The Dzoonokwa smashed down in a shower of glass and metal, destroying the kitchen units and taking down half the wall.

“Holy shit!” Something gnarled and massive crouched on all fours in the kitchen.

Jim swung around, pulling at the trigger and nothing happened. The shotgun wasn’t loaded. The Dzoonokwa lashed out with one spindly, tree-knotted arm and Jim went head over heels, smashed over the length of the kitchen table. Winchester stepped over Blair and let loose with both barrels. She jerked but made a slow step, inching forward, knuckles tapping the floor. Dean elbowed Sam into the flimsy protection of Blair’s room and grabbed the gun by the door. As she turned to the movement, her pendulous breasts swung.

“Ho!”

The hair rose on the back of Blair’s neck. One-handed, Dean fired going for the head. Wood splintered off her rigid mask-like face.

“Silver!” Winchester instructed, dropping the shotgun and coming up with an enormous gun. Each report was deafeningly loud. Blair flinched, hands over his ears. The Dzoonokwa howled. She crouched down, ready to jump, aiming at Dean. Extending clawed hands, she leaped.

Jim was suddenly in the way, barrelling into her. Engulfed in her encompassing breadth, he brought up a long silver knife into the open branches of her ribcage. They fell backwards, taking Dean with them. Her howl reverberated off the walls.

Winchester flung himself at the spirit-form, knife flashing in the air. Straddling her back, two-handed he drove the blade into her back. Violently, she arched, throwing Winchester off. In the wooden mask form the Dzoonokwa seemed invulnerable to their blades.

Blair was up and on his feet and hurdling over the television before he knew what he was doing. He snatched up the Dzoonokwa mask from the coffee table.

He held it above his head. “Dzoonokwa!”

She froze, clenched fist held high. Jim and Dean lay beneath her. Carefully, Blair took a step to the right, closer to the wood stove.

“I have you. I have your form. I take it and I make it mine!” Blair darted sideways and threw the mask into the fire. The straw hair went up like kindling.

She howled.

“Throw it at her. Throw it at her!” Sam yelled, penned in Blair’s room by the fighting.

“Yes!” Winchester reached past him into the fire.

Blair watched aghast, as the flames engulfed Winchester’s arm. The mask was a flaming torch. He didn’t throw it, he ran at the spirit. There was no hesitation, the man thrust the mask into the branched cradle of her ribcage. She clawed at her chest, nails scrabbling at the embedded mask. Blair could clearly see a knotted gall deep beneath her skeletal-tree frame that throbbed like a beating heart.

The flames sparked and she went up like a roman candle.

“Holy shit!”

She writhed, caught in the intensity of the conflagration.

Scrabbling across the floor, Jim dragged Dean out of the way by the scruff of his neck. Winchester ducked away from the Dzoonokwa rolling to the floor. Blair wasted a bare second, before grabbing a throw off the back of the sofa and falling on the man, beating out the flames running up his arm.

Lying across Winchester, Blair breathed heavily. It was astounding. The fires burned inwards, disintegrating the spirit. She howled a final, disconsolate ‘Ho’ and collapsed in on herself.

The smoke alarm in the kitchen suddenly let loose with an ear piercing shriek.

Sam laughed, then smacked his hand over his mouth. “I think it needs new batteries,” he mumbled.

Lying beneath Jim, Dean sniggered. “Man, that was awesome.”

“Move,” Winchester rumbled. He sat up, pushing Blair off. The heavy leather of his jacket was scorched. “Thanks.”

Jim clambered to his feet, hauling Dean with him. He skirted around the remains, dropping Dean, almost casually, onto the sofa. His next stop was the fire extinguisher from the kitchen. The hiss of the CO2 gas stamped out the final, guttering flame.

“Sammy,” Winchester said. Sam flung himself at his Dad. He caught him one-armed, clasping him against his side. “Good call.”

“Sir,” Dean said tiredly.

“How you doing, son?”

“I’m fine, Dad.”

“Good. Get your stuff.”

“What? No,” Jim stated.

“How are you going to stop me?” Winchester asked almost conversationally.

Jim only held a fire extinguisher. Winchester had his Colt, held anything but casually at his side. He released Sam, who moved straight to Dean. Insanely, Blair realised that both men were exactly the same height. Where Jim’s eyes were icy, Winchester’s were dark and impenetrable.

“You can’t take them,” Jim said resolutely. “I’m arresting you for child endangerment and abandonment.”

Winchester raised his weapon. “You’re going to shoot me with your fire extinguisher?”

“You going to shoot me with your Colt in front of your kids?”

“I don’t have to kill you. I just have to stop you. Dean, you have your orders.”

Without a word, Dean rushed to Blair’s room. The bags from the motel were still packed, just tossed on the floor.

“They’re in my custody,” Jim said.

“They’re my boys.”

Emergency sirens sounded in the distance. One of the neighbours must have called the police and the Fire Department. They hadn’t investigated the noise; they knew better.

Dean tossed Sam one of their bags. “Go, Sam.”

“Yeah,” Sam clasped it to his chest. He shot a fast glance between his father, Jim and Blair. “Thank you, Blair. It’s been… uhm…Man, I’m sorry about the kitchen. Thanks, Detective Ellison.”

“Sam, you dork.” Moving rapidly, Dean pushed him quickly to the door. He grimaced at the standoff. “Yeah, what Sam said, Detective.”

Then they were outside and clattering down the stairs.

“How are we going to do this?” Winchester asked. The reverberating shriek of the sirens was closer. “You can’t protect my boys from what’s out there. You can try, but you don’t know a tenth of what I know. I’m leaving now. If you come after me, I’m shooting you in the leg.”

Winchester backed up. Jim gritted his teeth. Winchester stepped out into the hall and then he was gone.

“What!” Blair shrieked. “You can’t let him go!”

Jim dropped the fire extinguisher with a clang. He looked around the devastated loft. “I just did, Chief. I just did.”

Epilogue

The plastic sheeting twisted in the wind. The repetitive flapping was really annoying. Jim pulled the tarp a fraction tighter and used the nail gun to fix it in place. It was Arctic cold in the loft. They had finally got the emergency services to leave. Blair had spun a wild tale about amazing, small scale meteorological phenomenon lifting up entire trees and depositing them miles from where they had been ripped up. Blair didn’t have a clue what Jim’s insurance was going to make of the damage. Would the insurance pay for the mask he had acquired – basically stolen -- from Rainier? At this point he didn’t really care; he just wanted to go to bed.

Jim had waved his badge and scared off the uniforms that had responded to the call. His fellow Major Crimes detectives, Rafe and Henri, had been a little harder to convince to leave, but after a beer they had wandered off.

“That’s better,” Jim said satisfied stepping back from the repairs.

“What about John Winchester?” Blair blurted before he could censor his words.

Jim tossed the nail gun in the remains of the sink. The grinding of his teeth was audible. Blair winced. Jim shot him a frustrated glare. He yanked open the fridge, which had miraculously survived the kitchen carnage, and dug out a couple of bottles of beer.

“Chief, did you want me to stop him taking Dean and Sam? Yeah, I could have arrested him. And I was damn tempted. I still am. You saw what we saw.” Jim held out a beer. “A monster. And, apparently, putting them down is his job.”

“What about Dean? What about Sam? Dragged all over the country. A week here at school. A week there at school. Sam’s so bright and he doesn’t even have a book collection.” Annoyed, Blair twisted violently at his beer cap.

“Look what happens when they’re separated from their Dad,” Jim said. “Monsters crawl out of the woodwork. Would Child Protective Services be able to handle that? They’re not going to let Dean sleep with a silver knife under his pillow.”

Blair made a mental note to make sure one of the knives dotted around the loft migrated to his pillow before he went to bed.

“What if it’s not over?” The scorched mark on the wooden floor mocked his quiet question. Annoyingly, it looked like they were never going to find out why it had targeted Sam and Dean. “The appeasement ceremony would have been a better solution.”

“Look, I know letting the kids leave isn’t ideal,” Jim continued ignoring his soft complaint. “But what we’re we going to do? Adopt them?”

Blair snorted.

“Look at it this way.” Jim held up the post-it with the pastor’s name and number jotted down. He stuck it to Blair’s forehead with a pat. “Do you really think that I’m going to lose track of them?”

 **The end**


End file.
